Category Archives: Health and Happiness

BY MICHELLE E. BROWN

It’s been over 100 days and I’m still angry. I’ve been angry since November. It’s not sour grapes just because my candidate did not win. This is anger, righteous indignation!

I’m angry that the promise, the American dream, is not just a dream deferred but – for millions seeking equality, justice, refuge from oppression, poverty and war – it’s a dream that got flushed down the political crapper.

I’m angry that on an almost daily basis, something comes out of Washington, D.C. that not only insults my intelligence but the intelligence of the global community.

I’m angry that despite the sheer madness of these activities a deluded group of partisan politicos continue to support and fail to do what they were sent to Washington to do.

I’m angry that the bearers of these daily mad tidings – the decision makers, the mansplainers and stepford-wife/fembots – not only don’t look like my neighbors, family and community, but haven’t a clue about our lives.

I’m angry that the same level of political dysfunction extends beyond Washington, D.C. and is equally rampant in state houses across the country.

I’m angry that after struggling without healthcare before the Affordable Care Act, I’m rushing around now trying to get procedures done because I’m afraid that I will be one of the 24 million Americans unable to afford insurance under Trumpcare – that is if I am even able to get coverage because of my preexisting conditions. I remember those days without healthcare – putting off standard procedures, deciding which every day expense was more important than my medicine, and the overwhelming burden of medical expenses for an uninsured visit to the emergency room – too many of us remember.

Who doesn’t have or know of someone who has one of these conditions? So, what are we to do with our friends, families even ourselves if we have one of these pre-existing conditions?

But the vote wasn’t about the health and welfare of the American people. It was just another notch in the political maelstrom of this new GOP reality. And then they got on busses to head to the White House and drink beer to celebrate pushing through the AHCA that, for the most part, none of the GOP Congressmen had even read – oh hell yeah I’m angry!

I’m angry that millions are spent for trips to and security for unauthorized white houses (i.e. Trump properties in New York, Florida, New Jersey, etc.) while families in Flint, MI and other urban areas don’t have safe water. Money that could prevent cuts to programs like meals-on-wheels. Meals that aren’t gourmet fare – just basic meals – that provide low income, and often homebound seniors a hot, nutritious meal delivered to their doorstep. Money that could go to federally funded after-school programs that can boost academic performance, reduce risky behaviors, promote physical health, and provide a safe, structured environment for the children of working parents.

I’m angry that every frigging week-end, instead of putting my dancing shoes on, I’m lacing up my boots and taking it to the streets marching – for women, for science, for immigration rights, for education, for the environment, for LGBTQ rights, for families, for Planned parenthood, etc.

I mean it’s every damn weekend for basic human rights, for battles we thought we had already fought and won.

Yes, I’m angry but I’m still lacing up my shoes and marching. I’m taking a deep breath and having conversations with folks who didn’t vote or voted for Stein or Sanders. I’ve even had a conversation with a repentant trump supporter who admitted voting on one issue – abortion – and now realized the short sightedness in her decision.

I hear Howard Beale’s words from the movie NETWORK echoing in my head “I’m mad as Hell

and I’m not going to take this anymore!” But this isn’t a movie, its real life right now in America.

As an African American, queer, woman, parent, environmentalist, artist, activist and so much more, I stand in the crosshairs of my intersectionality. I can’t stay safely in any one lane of my multiple identities and hope the rest will work itself out. They’ve put a bull’s eye on my back so doing nothing simply is NOT an option.

I’m having conversations with folks across lines of race, gender, class, ethnicity, religion, ages, sexual orientation and gender identity. Conversations that connect the dots across our varying identities to form a picture of our humanity. Our lives are not a one-lane road. They are an intersectional multi-laned superhighway and if we all want to make it to the finish line for the world, the environment and our humanity, we had damned well better learn how to navigate.

So in the face of opposition, obstacles and discouraging lack of leadership we must PERSIST even if that means marching every day, every weekend, every month. To borrow

from a gospel hymn we can’t feel no ways tired. We’ve come too far from where we started from. Nobody told us that the road would be easy.

When they try to give us fake news, double talk and straight up lies we must INSIST on accountability, demand our legislators do the job we elected them to do. That means showing up at their offices, signing petitions, writing letters, making phone calls, sending faxes and if they still ignore us, exercising our power and voting them out of office.

2018 elections are right around the corner. Your vote can count but you have to vote for it to count!

And more than ever we must RESIST. Resist the urge to give up and be silent. Resist apathy and despair. Resist the urge to only cast blame and not find solutions. But most importantly resist giving up our humanity and succumbing to the fear, polarization and vitriolic rhetoric that brought us to this place.

When receiving the “Profile in Courage Award” President Barack Obama said “I believe

what

Dr. King said, that “the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice,” but I’ve also said it does not bend on its own. It bends because we bend it, because we put our hand on that arch, and we move it in the direction of justice and freedom and equality and kindness and generosity. It doesn’t happen on its own.”

It’s time we step up our efforts and put our hearts, minds and spirits on that arch.

Let’s PERSIST, INSIST and RESIST and bend it once again in the direction of justice, freedom and equality for all.

Michelle E. Brown is a public speaker, activist and author. Her weekly podcast “Collections by Michelle Brown” airs every Thursday at 7 p.m. and can be heard on Blog Talk Radio, ITunes, Stitcher and SoundCloud. Follow her on Facebook at Collections by Michelle Brown.

Life started out simple, or so it seemed. There were two boxes — female/girl and male/boy.

It was all supposed to be simple from there. We would walk down that female/girl path from that first breath to our last without variation. There were supposed to be few curves in this female/girl path, but that path was never a viable way for any woman.

You see, this female/girl path has always been filled with inequities and inequalities. Even if we stayed on the “path,” the sign posts of “you can’t,” “you won’t” and “you aren’t” thwarted our efforts at every turn. They told me I couldn’t, I wouldn’t and I wasn’t and like so many of my sisters I planted my hands firmly on my little female/girl hips and said, “I know I can, so I think I will.”

I am African-American, female, queer, an artist, activist, and so much more. I choose to live all of these aspects of my life out and authentically. You get the picture — I do a lot of things.

The lines of my life are more than criss-crossing. Some days the lines are so blurred, it’s like I’m standing on the central island of a crazy intersectional roundabout pulling me in so many directions it’s at best challenging, if not totally overwhelming.

I’ve got a full house in the game of “diversity and inclusion” but despite my education, accolades and perceived opportunities, the deck has still been stacked against me, because when too many look at that central island of my roundabout, they still see that female/girl box.

We can go to space, lead companies, head foundations, serve in the military and, yes, raise families — but we are still women.

They see that female/girl box and deal their “woman card.” Their woman card says, “Women can’t be effective leaders.” Their woman card says we can’t make decisions about our own bodies. Their woman card says our work isn’t worth the same amount as our male counterparts. In their deck, the “woman” card is the joker and this joker must be tamed, never wild.

The “pink brick road” may be wider and go further than it did in the past, but the glass ceiling and the limited view of the abilities and value of a woman’s worth remains intact. If you had any doubt, just listen to the rhetoric of the current campaign.

At a forum at George Mason University earlier this year, Ohio Gov. John Kasich told a crowd that he won his 1978 election because women “left their kitchens” to support his campaign. When Fox News’s Megyn Kelly attempted to hold Trump accountable for his misogyny in a presidential debate, he dismissed the question as stupid and impertinent. Trump has referred to women he doesn’t like as ‘fat pigs,’ ‘dogs,’ ‘slobs,’ and ‘disgusting animals.’ Sen. Ted Cruz envisions a federal government under his administration that “works to defend the sanctity of human life and uphold the sacrament of marriage.”

When they look at our gender identity, their woman card says lesbian love/relationships are “experimental” or for their prurient interest. When forced to face the legitimacy of our LGBTQ relationships, they insert the hate card to attack our families and insert their woman card, supposedly to protect women and girls, to attack our transgender brothers and sisters. With their “woman” card comes oppression, misogyny, disempowerment, repression and would turn back the hands of time not just for women but also for the country.

But we have our own “woman” card. We’ve been keeping it up our sleeve as we’ve played each hand. We have overcome our fear of stepping into the intersections of our realities and our coming together to flex our collective muscle.

We are throwing down our “woman” card and leading the movements — like “Black Lives Matter.”

We are throwing down our “woman” card and fighting for women’s healthcare.

We are throwing down our “woman” card demanding safety for all women and girls, both cisgender and transgender, not only in bathrooms but in schools, neighborhoods and everywhere.

We are throwing down our “woman” card for environmental and economic justice and for families — all families.

We are throwing down our “woman” card because empowering women is a powerful strategy for reducing poverty and achieving other development goals globally.

GOP frontrunner Donald Trump accused Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary R. Clinton of trying to play the “woman” card to which she responded, “If fighting for women’s healthcare and paid family leave and equal pay is playing the woman card, then deal me in.”

Come November, we all need to be marching to the voting booth humming that Sister Sledge anthem – “We Are Family!” Yes, we are family, and I need every sister with me. It’s time for all of us to play that “woman” card up our sleeve, and not just win this election but also change the whole game.

The G-List Society profiles an individual whose social platform brings empowerment to constituents, peers and fellow leaders in The Black LGBTQ Influencer weekly column. The Black LGBTQ Influencer column is part of my mission for The G-List Society of empowering and celebrating the greatness of Black LGBTQ people.

This week’s Black LGBTQ Influencer is Detroit activist and radio host Michelle E. Brown. Brown was selected by me because I have noticed her work as writer and activist by name long before we met. Since meeting her, my personal and online interactions with Ms. Brown has always been warmingly positive. Brown is one of the few people in the LGBTQ community I can say without hesitation that her platform is authentically selfless to benefit us LGBTQ people of color. I also feel that she truly cares that I keep up the work that I do for the community.

I’m getting older. Aren’t we all? From the moment our lives begin, we are on that road to the end of life as we know it. I’m in pretty good health and most days the brain cells are functioning optimally. Like many folks I tend to live in the moment. For me “Every day you wake up on the ‘right’ side of the grass is a GOOD day!

I probably haven’t spent as much time as I should planning for my golden years. You know, there’s always tomorrow! However, two films I viewed recently have had me thinking about just that.

I wasn’t in a rush to see “Freeheld,” an adaptation of a documentary about a lesbian couple who mounted a campaign to have pension benefits of a terminally ill lesbian go to her partner. After all marriage equality is now the law of the land, so in most cases, this is a moot point. Right?

But as I watched the film, I got to thinking about my pension benefits. You see for many years I worked for a Catholic institution and am entitled to a pension from that institution. I’m not married right now but have to wonder what will happen if/when I do marry and I try to change my beneficiary to my spouse what would happen.

Would some bigoted review board, like that depicted in “Freeheld”, emboldened by proposed Religious Freedom Restoration bills, block my assignment of my benefits to her? With mergers and acquisitions there’s no telling who might hold the pension “purse strings” when the time comes.

Pensions, like social security, are one of those benefits we pay into assuming they will be available when the time comes for ourselves and families. But even having access to these benefits and the ability to leave them to our spouses/partners is no guarantee that our final years will be golden.

It’s bad enough that we in the LGBTQ community can still be fired for being gay, but proposed RFRA’s would exempt people from state and local laws if they can prove those laws violate deeply held religious beliefs, in effect, giving them a “license to discriminate.” What if I need assistance to stay in my home or long-term care? Could my safety or health be compromised just because someone’s “deeply held religious beliefs” would allow them to withhold or give me inadequate care?

The question of who will take care of us as we age, is something we all wonder at some point. The documentary “Gen – Silent” took me deeper down the “rabbit hole” of LGBTQ senior living. The 2010 documentary follows the lives of three couples and a transgender woman facing the challenges of building support networks to assist them in maintaining their quality of life as they age.

The people interviewed have for the most part lived “private lives” but like many from that generation have not been as “out” publicly as those of us from later generations.

Often LGBTQ partnerships and marriages feel, to the couples, like it’s just the two of us against the world. We may not have extended biological families or children. Despite growing acceptance in the community at-large, many of us remain estranged from our families.

The uncertainty of the quality of care or acceptance in healthcare/long-term care institutions is a reality and has many in the LGBTQ community wondering if we will have to go back “in the closet” one day if we are no longer able to take care of ourselves.

Couple this with the fear of not having the financial resources to stay in our homes or maintain a decent quality of life, it paints a scary picture for aging LGBTQ people – very scary!!

The good news is LGBTQ folks are great at making our own families and building our own networks. Our network/links are only getting stronger as we are “OUT” in our communities. This network now includes SAGE – Metro Detroit to fill in the gaps for our elders.

Marriage equality wasn’t the end of our journey, only one step along the way. For us to no longer live in fear, to have full equality and equal rights/protections for ourselves and our families, being in the closet is not an option. We must be out to our families, in our communities and for one another

Activist and revolutionary Grace Lee Boggs, who died at age 100 October 5th, often said “The only reward for good work is more work.” We’ve come a long way in a short time. We can serve openly in the military, get married and are gaining more protections through Human Rights Ordinances in municipalities across the country. Progress yes but there is still much work to be done.

For those most vulnerable, especially our LGBTQ elders, the next chapter of our work must include being out for them so that their golden years and final days can be lived with dignity.